Learn About Family & Systemic Constellation Therapy

A group (typically strangers) is led by a facilitator. In turn, members of the group can explore an urgent personal issue. Generally, several members will be given an opportunity to set up a Constellation in each session.

After a brief interview, the facilitator suggests who will be represented in the Constellation. These are usually a representative for the seeker, one or more family members, and sometimes abstract concepts such as "depression" or a country.

The person presenting the issue (seeker or client) asks people from the group to be representatives. He or she arranges the representatives according to what feels right in the moment. The seeker then sits down and observes.

Several minutes elapse with the representatives standing still and silent in their places. Unlike psychodrama the representatives do not act, pose or role play.

Emphasis is placed on intuition in placing the representatives and in subsequent steps of the procedure. The aim is to tap into what the psychiatrist Albrecht Mahr describes as the Knowing Field (Mahr 1999). The Knowing Field is claimed to guide participants to sense and articulate the feelings of the real family members they represent. This is inexplicable because the representatives have never met these people, have been told little or nothing about them and those family members may no longer be living. Nevertheless, the representatives usually will experience feelings or physical sensations which inform the process.

The facilitator may ask each representative to describe how it feels to be placed in relation to the others. At this point, the facilitator, seeker, and group members may perceive something in the spacial relationships and feelings held by the representatives that is informative regarding an underlying dynamic that relates to the presenting personal issue.

A healing resolution for the issue generally involves the repositioning the representatives and for the facilitator to suggest one or two sentences to be spoken aloud. If the representatives do not feel better in their new position or sentence, they can move again or try a different sentence. Sometimes the process ends before a full resolution is achieved.

A healing resolution is achieved when every representative feels right in his or her place and the other representatives agree. This is claimed to represent, in an abstract way, a possible resolution of the issues faced by the subject of the session.

The Client *

In a group Constellation workshop, the client is anyone in attendance who in the moment is sitting on a burning issue and is able to articulate it, and who together with the gathered group, is willing to explore the issue by observing the unfolding of a constellation.

The Constellation

Together, the group observes representatives interacting with each other in service to the client. As members of the gathered group, we allow ourselves simply to observe, free to the best of our ability of our usual mental jibber jabber, allowing the possibility of a shift in our perceptions, and allowing for the possibility of healing to take place.

The Representatives

Representatives in a constellation are members of the group who are willing to represent (for the client) a person such as a family member, ancestor or partner; or to represent the client's self; or a state of being such as the higher self, or an emotion; or an aspect like inner masculine of feminine, inner victim or perpetrator. Or the representation could be an illness; or a goal, or an option that the client may have.

* The client, the constellation and the representative from Dan Pulido, Certified Facilitator

Family Constellation Therapy is an energetic technique that taps into the field of the family system. It is not bound by space or time. Individual sessions in person, by phone, or using the internet, are a very powerful and effective form of Constellation work.

They may include the use of visualization techniques to reveal family dynamics or it may involve the use of objects to "represent" family members, ancestors or aspects of a family system. The facilitator may also take on one or more representations for the client.

An individual session often begins with a brief conversation about what the client needs and some historical information about missing or excluded family members, tragedies, difficult fates and other possibilities that may be involved. Working together the client and facilitator begin to create a constellation.

Some facilitators prefer to use wooden figures to create an individual constellation. Amazingly, the figures can take on the energy and aspects of what they represent. Clients are usually able to sense which direction the wooden figures are looking, who they are drawn to or avoid. Often they sense the intent or thoughts of the figures. The Facilitator may also have strong impressions throughout the process very similar to what happens in the group version.

The information provided on this web site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her physician, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, or any medications such licensed individuals have prescribed to you.

Always consult with your physician, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, before starting any health program.